As many of you know, Rebecca and I have moved our base of operation from Maine to Southwest Florida.  What started as a vacation a year ago has turned into a permanent move to a place as close to paradise as we have ever found.  We are both profoundly happy with our decision, and have [...]

Rebecca and I have finally taken the plunge to new quarters for ourselves and our businesses.  We have relocated for the winter months to Estero, Florida which is a suburb of Naples on Florida’s west coast.  We are thrilled with our new home, and are now up and running on continuing to service our clients.  [...]

We tell all of our Inn Consulting clients that their website must remain fresh and full of good content to not only attract new customers but to retain existing ones as well.  Now it is time for us to take our own advice.  Even though this version of our website is only a very few [...]

The following comments were prepared for the Spring Meeting of the Distinctive Inns of New England.  This is an incredible group of Inns for whom we are privileged to act as the facilitators.  They meet twice a year to decide on their group marketing efforts and to catch up on important topics of concern to [...]

A brand new Innkeeper remarked to me that they had spent a lot of time prior to buying the Inn discovering why people came there.  With that knowledge, they were going to change their marketing plans to try to attract as many of those people as possible.  As he said, “People can read a book [...]

Innkeeping can be a very rewarding career for individuals who enjoy people and want to be self employed.  However, Innkeeping is not for all people.  To truly understand Innkeeping we suggest that education be on the top of the list before taking the plunge!  
Education happens by speaking with current Innkeepers, staying at Inns, and keeping [...]

In this new world of expanding Electronic Marketing and Social Media for Inns, it is easy to overlook one goal that has not changed with time.  Good old fashioned hospitality and excellence of service combine to keep your guests happy, and most of all, to get them to come back for a repeat visit.  This [...]

In our last post on this subject, we explored the concept of adding value to keep bed and breakfast packages attractive to guests.  The whole idea was to package room nights with additional services and experiences in such a way that the brand identity of the Inns was not impacted by the built-in discounts.  The [...]

I posed the question on Twitter yesterday as to whether Innkeepers think that their Cancellation Policies help or hurt their businesses.  I received some really interesting answers; not a scientific survey, but the reactions of some very smart people in our Bed and Breakfast Industry.  It turned into a sort of on-line discussion, and Twitter [...]

At PAII 2007, we did a presentation called “Creative Electronic Marketing: Proven Methods to Reach Profitability.”  At the time this was mostly about email marketing, and in several of the slides we pointed out the Top Ten Topics to include in newsletters about the Inn.  We concluded the seminar with examples, both good and bad, [...]